Any Coloradan with a cell phone will soon be able to access banned books for free.
This #BannedBookWeek, we have a lot to lament. Though some book bans have been stalled or swatted down in the courts, stealthy removal campaigns continue. At home and abroad.
But as Haylee May of CPR News first reported, at least the good people of Colorado will have free speech to celebrate. Thanks to the administrators at Anythink public library, Coloradans will soon have access to a whole digital library of banned books. Free of charge.
Anythink serves Coloradans in Adams County. The library has seven physical branches in Bennett, Brighton, Commerce City, Thornton and the Perl Mack neighborhood of Denver, in addition to a robust digital program.
Beginning this national #BannedBooksWeek, that digital program will play host to “roughly 300 banned and challenged titles and documents,” which anyone in the state can access for free.
This Freedom to Read collection goes by the logistical grace of The Palace Project, a free app that serves readers across the country. Even those without library cards.
Developed in partnership with the Digital Public Library of America, The Palace Project supports public libraries from Connecticut to California “in their mission to provide equitable access to digital content.” The app collects minimal user data, and lets readers enjoy hundreds of e-books. Again, free, free, free.
As Lauren Penington of The Denver Post reported this May, it’s been a funky time for libraries and e-book licenses. (To bracket, for a moment, the book bans that have made all this hustling necessary in the first place.)
Though e- and audiobooks are much easier to disseminate and continue to grow in popularity, they’re a hard resource for libraries to maintain. That’s because libraries usually pay “more than $65 for a two-year license on an e-book,” where the average American would pay $12.99.
E-audiobooks are even worse. They can run a library up to $100. Which is a much higher investment cost than a print book, which tends to go for less than an Andrew Jackson “and can be loaned out until it falls apart.”
Thanks to a groundbreaking agreement last summer, Anythink and its Rocky Mountain peers can now get around those prohibitive licensing costs. This means more books for more people, and a easier slide past the many forces—legal or not—that continue to hunt “objectionable” books out of public space.
As Anythink executive director Mark Fink told CPR, the Freedom to Read collection will tend a wide stable. From “powerful literary works…like 1984, The Bluest Eye, Where the Crawdads Sing, To Kill a Mockingbird, [and] Wicked,” to nonfiction like “Just Mercy, White Fragility, and A Queer History of the United States.” What unites all these titles is the fact they’ve been challenged by courts in Colorado or around the country.
Good looking out, Anythink. To everyone out of Colorado: Banned Books Week will run from October 5-11 this year. We hope you read something troubling, to celebrate.
